Friendly Skies: Drones To the Rescue

By

Holly Finn

Dec. 28, 2012 10:38 p.m. ET

'Didn't you always want a bird on a leash?" asked the young man. He was wearing a dinosaur hoodie, with soft fabric spikes down the back, and holding a piece of tape about 10 feet long. At the end was an airborne personal drone—four hoops fused together, propellers inside each—buzzing obediently behind him. The crowd of a hundred, at this month's DroneGames in San Francisco, was rapt. A drone as a pet! We all wanted one.

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